Current Lab Members
Hee Won Yang
Heewon has been an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center since 2019. He earned his PhD from KAIST and completed his postdoctoral training with Dr. Tobias Meyer at Stanford University. Outside the lab, Heewon is an avid marathon runner and can often be found logging miles throughout New York City.
Contact: hy2602@cumc.columbia.edu
Principal Investigator, PhD
Suyeon is a postdoctoral research scientist. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Science from Korea University in South Korea. Her research focuses on understanding how cancer cells adapt to therapeutic pressure and evade anti-tumor immune responses, with the goal of identifying mechanisms of resistance to anti-cancer therapies. She is a recipient of the Korea NRF Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2024 and the ACS Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2026–2029. In her free time, she enjoys biking, cooking, discovering new restaurants, and traveling.
Contact: sk5455@cumc.columbia.edu
Postoctoral Fellow, PhD (NRF and ACS fellowship)
Suyeon Kim
Dana is a Biomedical Life Sciences PhD student in the Cancer Biology Track at Columbia University. She graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 2024 with a B.S. in Biology and minors in Chemistry and Science Communication. While working as a Research Technician at MSKCC, she studied the role of mutated transcriptional CDKs in castration-resistant prostate cancer. She is interested in studying the mechanisms of synthetic lethality in cancer subtypes and their potential for therapeutic exploitation.
Contact: ds4614@cumc.columbia.edu
PhD Student (Rotation Student)
Dana Schoeps
Amanda Leone
Amanda graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Biological Sciences. She joined the Yang Lab in April 2025 as a graduate student in the Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies Program. During her PhD, she looks forward to investigating the mechanisms of whole-genome duplication and cell-cycle surveillance.
Contact: agl2149@cumc.columbia.edu
PhD Student
Amanda Prashad
Amanda graduated from Barnard College in May 2026 with a B.A. in Biochemistry and a minor in Science and Public Policy. With a strong interest in cancer biology, she spent two summers in Dr. Sara Zaccara's Lab at CUIMC studying N6-methyladenosine (m⁶A) RNA modification. To expand her research experience, she joined the Yang Lab in 2024 and assisted with investigating how polyploid cancer cells tolerate replication stress following whole-genome duplication. She will be continuing in the Yang Lab as a post-baccalaureate research technician and hopes to later pursue a PhD further exploring chemical and genetic regulation in cancer.
Contact: ap4307@cumc.columbia.edu
Postbaccalaureate Researcher
Isidro Guadarrama Rea
Isidro joined the Yang Lab in 2024 and is currently a senior pursuing a major in biochemistry at Columbia University. His research efforts have focused on understanding how cancers respond and adapt to targeted therapies in NRAS-mutant melanoma and KRAS-mutant lung cancer. Through this work, he has developed an interest in the complex ways tumors evolve under therapeutic pressure. In his free time, you can find him exploring a new part of the city or riding a bike through Central Park.
Contact: ig2504@cumc.columbia.edu
Undergraduate Researcher
Huisun Hong
Undergraduate Researcher
Huisun is a student in the Columbia University-Juilliard School Dual-Degree Program, pursuing a pre-med track at Columbia while studying cello at Juilliard. He joined the Yang Lab in February 2026 and has assisted Dr. Suyeon Kim with her research. As he continues to expand his research experience, he looks forward to conducting his own projects and exploring the complexities of cancer mutations and therapeutic resistance. In his free time, Huisun enjoys listening to classical music and going on runs.
Contact: hh3184@columbia.edu
Amir Annab
Undergraduate Researcher
Amir is a freshman at Columbia University pursuing a major in Biochemistry or Neuroscience on the pre-medical track, with hopes of becoming a physician. He joined the Yang Lab in 2026 to expand his research experience in cancer biology. Prior to Yang Lab, Amir conducted research at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute in Dr. Andrew Tomlinson's lab, where he studied Atonal gene expression and regulation in Drosophila photoreceptors and embryos. Using CRISPR gene editing, he helped generate fluorescent reporter lines to investigate how genes involved in retinal patterning are also expressed during early embryonic development. He contributed to the creation of a new Drosophila line and assisted with a lab grant application.
Contact: aa5572@columbia.edu
Kayla Lieberman
Undergraduate Researcher
Kayla is a sophomore at Barnard College pursuing a major in Biology on the pre-medical track. She joined the Yang Lab in 2026 to expand her research experience in cancer biology. Prior to Yang Lab, she completed a mentorship in the Velocigene Microbiology Lab at Regeneron, where she studied cutting-edge gene editing techniques for the development of gene therapies.
She also worked as a Neurobiology Lab intern at Hebrew University, where she conducted experiments on C. elegans to study sensory integration, examining how the sense of smell is enhanced in the absence of touch, and exploring how these findings can inform our understanding of human sensory systems.
Contact: krl2155@barnard.edu
Former Lab Members
Daseuli Yu, 2025–2026, Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher
Sungsoo Kim, 2020–2026, Postdoctoral Researcher; Current Position: Assistant Professor, Ewha University, Korea
Jessica Armand, 2021–2025, PhD Student; Current Position: Science Liaison, Causaly (AI biotech)
Kibum Kim, 2023–2025, Postdoctoral Researcher; Current Position: Research Fellow, University of Michigan
Eugene Son, 2023–2025, Postbaccalaureate Researcher; Current Position: PhD Student, Columbia University
Mimi Zhang, 2021–2024, Postbaccalaureate Researcher; Current Position: PhD Student, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Anusha Shanabag, 2024, Master Student; Current Position: Strategy & Insights, ZS Associates
Caitlin O'Neil, 2021–2023, Undergraduate Student
Kaitlin Abrantes, 2020–2021, Undergraduate Student; Current Position: PhD Student, Weill Cornell Medicine